Mailchimp just cut their free plan to 250 contacts. I think small businesses deserve better
I kept hearing the same thing from small business owners:
"Email marketing tools are either too expensive or too complicated for what I actually need."
So I started building QeakFlow.
The pattern was always the same - a local shop owner, a freelancer, a small agency - they don't need automation workflows or A/B testing dashboards.
They just want to send a campaign, manage their contacts, and not think about it.
Most tools were built for marketing teams in large companies.
Small businesses are an afterthought.
QeakFlow is different:
- Flat pricing - no subscriber tiers, no surprises
- BYO SMTP (SES, Mailgun, your own) - you own your deliverability
- GDPR-friendly by design - EU-hosted, your data stays yours
- No features you'll never use
Backend is done. Building the UI now.
Looking for 5 early users to test with real campaigns before the public launch.
If you run email marketing for a small team - what's the most annoying part
of the tools you use today?
The flat pricing angle is strong, but I’d be careful not to make this only a “Mailchimp got worse” story.
That creates attention, but the real buyer pain is simpler: small businesses want to send campaigns without feeling punished for growing a contact list.
The sharper first test is probably one small-business segment where email already drives money: local service businesses, small agencies, event operators, or ecommerce shops with repeat buyers.
If QeakFlow tests too broadly, you may get “sounds useful” feedback without knowing who would actually switch.
I’d narrow the first 5 testers around one group that already sends real campaigns and feels the pricing/tool-bloat pain now.
Thanks, really appreciate the comment.
That's a good point. The Mailchimp angle gets attention, but it probably isn't the main reason people would switch. I think narrowing down to one group of users first is the right move too.
A handful of businesses that actually send campaigns every week will teach us a lot more than trying to get feedback from everyone at once. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Exactly. The first real signal is not whether people like the flat-pricing idea.
It is whether one specific group that already sends campaigns every week would actually switch.
That is the test I’d stay close to.
That's exactly how I see it. A pricing model isn't a business. A customer segment is. If a specific group starts switching and stays, that's validation. Everything else is just a hypothesis